


Sea-Salt, Sleep and Something New

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Insomnia, Introspection, M/M, Post-Canon, Remnants of Despair (Dangan Ronpa), happy birthday Nagito!!!, traveling around on a ship with the former Remnants of Despair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23900638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Nagito can't sleep, and so he goes to read out on their ship's deck in the middle of the night.  Hajime joins him.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito
Comments: 10
Kudos: 175





	Sea-Salt, Sleep and Something New

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!!! I hope you enjoy this story, if you read it~~~ Sorry for any and all mistakes I might've made, and also happy birthday, Nagito!!! :D I wanted to write some fluff for his birthday, but this maybe came out a little introspection-heavy ahahaha. 
> 
> Thank you!!! I hope you're staying safe and having a lovely day.

Nagito Komaeda couldn’t sleep, and so he padded barefoot through the hallways of that boat where he’d lived with his friends for the past couple restless, sea-salt-gritty years. He ran the tips of his fingers along the walls so he didn’t lose his balance, or anything, and tried to keep very quiet. His flyaway white hair was mostly tied back in a sloppy ponytail, and he was wearing a t-shirt Hajime Hinata had found on one of their discreet supply runs. It had the logo of a horror video game Nagito liked on it. Something he’d played before the world fell apart. 

It was lucky, Hajime finding that shirt. Nagito reminded himself that he couldn’t deserve it, after everything; he wondered what it could mean that Hajime insisted on picking up food he liked, and checking to make sure his mechanical arm was working fine, and asking him, “Nagito, you’re shielding your face against the sun like a vampire... did you sleep, at all?” Hajime might ask a question like that just this next morning, actually, when Nagito stumbled out of his cabin room again, trying to smile all bright-eyed so he wouldn’t look like a mess. So Hajime wouldn’t worry about him. 

Why did Hajime worry so much, anyway? Nagito knew he was so lucky to be where he was: lucky to be alive, lucky to have his freedom and his fancy high-tech mechanical arm. Lucky Hajime had stuck around fighting for him, trying to drag him safely out of his own mind after the simulated killing game that had won them all back their lives. It had taken Nagito longer than the rest to come home to himself, but Hajime had been right there waiting for him even so. Hajime had offered him a hand up when he’d been ready to leave his simulation pod, and he’d kept a protective arm around Nagito’s shoulders as he tested out walking again on creaking legs that felt just about ready to snap beneath him. Hajime’s arm had been so solid and warm; his eyes were mismatched, now, half his own and half belonging to his Izuru Kamukura-self. The Ultimate Hope, who had traded his normalcy to become a piece of every talent under the sun. 

There you go: whatever else Nagito might‘ve been, it wasn’t as if he could help being lucky. He’d been the Ultimate Lucky Student, once upon a time, so there was no telling what kind of ridiculous luck might follow him around that night or anytime at all. No telling what kind of weird luck Hajime’d signed up for even just hanging close to him, and remembering what video games he liked, and making sure he knew when everybody on the boat was doing a game night so he could join in, too. Nagito trusted that Hajime wasn’t going anywhere, by now. How strange was that? And he knew the risks, too!

Maybe Nagito would climb out on deck, just now, and a huge wave would swallow him out into the sea again; maybe he’d accidentally put his foot through one of the Ultimate Mechanic’s experiments and lose a couple toes. Nagito’s luck was a pendulum, swaying from amazing to horrible, back and forth, churning sour and sick in the pit of his stomach all the time. Keeping him on edge, even when he wanted to be soft or funny, even when Nagito was begging the universe not to take any of his friends away after all they’d been through. Not to punish Hajime Hinata for trying to understand him. Nagito couldn’t sleep, and so maybe some good luck was coming for him now, huh? He couldn’t sleep, and so he thought he’d grab a drink of water and read for a little while out in the fresh air. 

Nagito and his friends were international criminals — the infamous Remnants of Despair, are you scared yet? — so their world was always on the move. They had to keep running, stirring up artificial trouble across the globe to drive humanity fighting on. If they were caught, there’d be no reason for people to keep chasing them in the name of overcoming despair, would there? They wouldn’t be able to nudge anybody on towards greater things while playing at being supervillains. Or, in a sense, actually _being_ supervillains. Nagito and his friends had been consumed by Junko Enoshima’s despair in so many screaming painful ways, and because of that... because of who they’d been... so many strangers were dead. It had been for the triumph of hope in the end, Nagito'd always preached — it had been for the greater shining irrefutable good — but that didn’t mean he wanted to think about all the simple lives snuffed out along the way. They had been stepping stones — they had been sacrifices. If Nagito considered them as human beings... human beings hunted down by the kids in Towa City, or with their guts slathered across the pavement by robotic bears, or exploded into splattery paintings along the wall by Nagito’s own bombs... it felt like his skin didn’t fit right. 

He knew the Remnants of Despair had all been walking nightmares. 

Every time Nagito stepped out on solid ground nowadays, he did it as the Servant. That’s what he’d been called, as one of the Remnants of Despair. He hid his mechanical arm so it could’ve easily been Junko Enoshima’s clammy dead girl’s skin underneath his oven mitt glove. He wore gas masks and was known for wiring explosives; he was terrifying to more people than had ever said “Hi” to Nagito in his life. People knew the Servant had hacked off his own hand so he could sew Junko Enoshima’s back where it had been; people knew the Servant had seen so many people die, he could talk casually with blood in his hair and his arms spread wide. A beatific smile on his face. This was worship, to the Servant. This was sour justice, and he was both Junko Enoshima’s enemy and the kind of person who’d willingly make her a part of his own flesh. 

Again and again, Nagito reminded Hajime what he had been, when Junko twisted him up inside... what he was capable of being, under the surface of it all... and again and again, they play-acted being defeated by the forces of hope and Hajime bundled Nagito back onto the ship with the rest of them. Hajime made sure Nagito hadn’t gotten hurt, running from the people who had good reason to be afraid of him. Hajime helped Nagito pry the Servant’s heavy collar off, and tsk-ed if it had bruised his skin. 

There'd been a time when Nagito had never expected the bruises on his neck to heal. He’d thought he deserved them — another sacrifice for the inevitable ascension of hope — and all his friends had breathed despair like a second atmosphere. Now, Nagito let the Ultimate Nurse treat his wounds, and he’d gotten used to the air always smelling like the ocean, like oil and the Ultimate Chef’s cooking and sunscreen. It was weird to think the Ultimate Lucky Student had a home where people wanted to keep him close despite how dangerous he could be, and maybe it was even weirder to think the Servant had a home, too. 

But he did, somehow, just like he had somebody in his life who went out of his way to bring him horror game t-shirts. Talk about “lucky,” right?

Nagito brought a water bottle and some mystery novel or another out under the stars. The book was disgustingly water damaged and had almost ended up down a garbage disposal once, but then — it _did_ belong to the former Ultimate Lucky Student, so it was enough to say the thing was still readable. Nagito borrowed one of the beach chairs waiting on the deck and pulled out his Ultimate Detective-themed reading light (Kyoko Kirigiri, part of the Future Foundation — the Ultimate Detective still sometimes emailed with Hajime and the others, how amazing was that?) He stared out over the water for a minute, thinking about the creatures seething beneath all those endless dark waves. Thinking about everything that could rise dripping out of the ocean and try to swallow him, then, if his luck swerved wrong. After a while, Hajime shuffled over to join him. 

“I can’t sleep either,” Hajime said, and his hair was such spiky bedhead that Nagito caught himself smiling. Now, he knew he tended to talk too much, sometimes... to say the wrong things, crowding too close and making people uncomfortable with his sing-song, rattly-laughter doctrine. Nagito wanted to ask if it had been Kamukura stuff keeping Hajime up this time, or something worrying him from their day-to-day lives. He wanted to gush about how nice it was to see him — about how Hajime was welcome to share the deck as long as he needed. Maybe Hajime could tell all that stuff was passing like a flurry through Nagito’s head, though, because he made the next bit so simple. 

“What’re you reading?” Hajime asked, and Nagito showed him the cover of his mystery novel. There you go. If the book had been a bit less mangled by his ridiculous luck, that could’ve almost been smooth. Hajime had put on sandals to come out here, and there was a slick of scar cream across his forehead. They’d operated on him there, erasing Hajime Hinata and creating a “perfect,” hauntingly talented self in his place. 

“You can read with me, if you want,” Nagito said, and he hoped he didn’t sound too quick about it. Too eager to get Hajime bundled in next to him on that extra-wide beach chair. He flipped back to the mystery novel’s first page and cleared his throat. Offering. He summarized the book’s basic premise, and Hajime chuckled. Climbed in beside him, crossing his legs at the ankle. He held out a hand to take the Kyoko Kirigiri-brand reading light, and Nagito interpreted what he wanted soundlessly, naturally. Like they fit together well, by now, even if Nagito had never really expected to “fit together” anywhere in the world. 

Hajime held the light, and Nagito turned the pages. They read together in silence for some time, under a wide-open sky, with the stars reflected vaguely in that dark mirror of an ocean beneath them. Nagito could have felt very small, on a night like this, but Hajime chuckled at a funny thing in the book, and one of his arms had found its way around Nagito’s back, bracing himself up on the beach chair. Hajime was warm, and close, and real. If Nagito let himself relax just the tiniest bit, he would be leaning into Hajime, held like a — he didn’t know. Like a boyfriend. Like somebody whose forehead would be kissed lightly as he slept, cherished even when he didn’t know it. Like somebody who got to atone, and reinvent himself, and learn what it was like to be worth more than his inconvenient luck. Nagito’s blood relatives hadn’t paid a ransom to win him back, when he was a kid, but _Hajime and the others_ would pay a ransom for him. They already had, sort of, in building him a mechanical arm, and fighting to save his mind. Or did that not count?

Of course it counted. They had paid a ransom to Junko Enoshima, and to the Servant. They had paid a ransom to despair, and to hope, and to all the people that had reason to want Nagito Komaeda gone. 

Nagito thought about leaning back, and he thought about propping his head on Hajime’s shoulder, and they both raised their eyebrows at each other when an especially gory scene came along in that mystery novel. Ultimate Talents were awe-inspiring, of course, but if Hajime hadn’t been able to fight his way back out of Izuru Kamukura’s smothering apathy the world would be a much darker place. Both the ocean and the sky, without light. Nagito had started trying to tell him things like that, over the months, but he didn’t think it had ever come out right. 

Nagito thought about leaning back, his head against Hajime’s shoulder, his elbow possibly jutting into Hajime’s side until they figured out how to do this right, and finally — wondering when he’d washed his hair last, hoping he didn’t smell bad — he actually did. He let out a deep breath, then, and felt Hajime shift beside him. Hajime adjusted his arm so that he could squeeze Nagito’s shoulders; Hajime checked the fancy rich-person’s watch the Ultimate Affluent Prodigy had gifted him and murmured, “Oh, hey. Do you know what time it is, Nagito?”

“No idea, really,” Nagito said. He was looking down at the book, and then at his hands. Creeping his eyes up his Ultimate Detective-themed reading light and to Hajime’s dark suntanned skin. 

“It’s after midnight,” Hajime said. “Happy birthday.” 

When Hajime kissed the top of his head, Nagito almost didn’t realize what had happened at first. He shifted around to look in Hajime’s face properly and found him flushed bright red, though. His eyes went wide and he pulled Hajime’s shirt collar down, dragging himself up, moving too quickly — he was always moving too quickly, what was wrong with him? What was he doing? — to kiss Hajime back. It was a messy, unpracticed kiss. They could do better next time. If Hajime let there be a next time. 

Nagito knew, in that moment — with Hajime holding him so tightly, surprised and awkward but pulling him in closer — that there was going to be a next time. It seemed like Hajime had been thinking about this for a while, and Nagito had a clear, calm realization about why he seemed to worry so much. They were friends... really, honestly friends... but Hajime had wanted to hold him when he couldn’t sleep, too. Hajime had been counting down the hours to his birthday; Hajime probably meant it, when he said Nagito could drive him crazy or scare the crap out of him but _he was worth it,_ in the end. 

They could both be loved. 

Nagito fell asleep there, reading against Hajime’s shoulder on the edge of the ship that would probably be his home-base for the rest of forever. For however long his weird, impossible luck let him live. He woke up to sea gull cries and the splintering chaos of the Ultimate Gymnast and Ultimate Team Manager having another early-morning sparring session. He woke up and found Hajime asleep next to him on his birthday, the Ultimate Detective-themed reading light still burning out its battery in his hand. 

Nagito reached over to smooth down Hajime’s spiky hair, but then decided — no. He ruffled it up, just a little more, and then rested his head back down again. He clicked the reading light off; he breathed in sea-salt and sunshine. He could hear their friends looking for Hajime, out around the rest of the ship. It was only a matter of time before they had to get up, maybe grab some coffee. 

Nagito hadn’t slept that well in what felt like a long time. 


End file.
